


The Memory Tree

by Zyrieen



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, X-Men (Movies), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Charles/Erik if you squint, Family, Fluff and Feels, Fuzzy time - ageing, Gen, Headcanon, Short Chapters, Siblings, Vague references to events of comics, Vague references to events of movies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-04
Packaged: 2017-12-10 09:53:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/784729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zyrieen/pseuds/Zyrieen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every year, Raven comes home to Westchester for Christmas with Charles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1962

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this while I was away from home, on a tropical island, for my brother's wedding. Back at home, my best friends' lives were falling apart and I couldn't do anything about it. I was also listening to the Narnia soundtracks, especially Oren Lavie - Dance 'Round The Memory Tree (on YouTube [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZRl4XQD9nI)) pretty much on loop as I tried to get a moment alone (there were about 8 people staying in a 3-bedroom cottage).
> 
> I make no apologies for the feels. I missed my friends. I missed my home. But I wouldn't regret where I was, either.

Charles stared across the room at the Christmas tree the children had insisted on setting up in the ballroom and decorating themselves. He'd watched and smiled but hadn't gotten involved in the merriment, and in this moment of quiet as the children had dinner he finally let the smile fall. In the past it had been he and Raven who had celebrated Christmas together, sitting by the fire in the second floor library while his mother and stepfather held court in this ballroom - sans tree, of course. Kurt saw Christmas as an opportunity to make connections; his mother didn't see anything in those days except his father's ghost. Since Cain was always someone to be avoided, that left him and Raven to make themselves a family Christmas.

Except now Raven was gone. Walked away on a Caribbean beach, and now there would be no more family Christmas, Raven sitting in her favourite chair and waiting for him to come back with the sweets from the kitchen...

It wasn't until he was halfway down the corridor on his way back to his study that he realised the Raven in the second floor library wasn't a ghost brought on by nostalgia but real.

~Raven?!~ It was automatic, connecting to her mind to talk to her, and it took him an extra moment to rein in the wave of relief/joy that she was _there_. ~Er, Mystique...?~

~Hi, Charles~ she directed at him-in-her, used to communicating with him like this, but unreasonably nervous. ~I wondered...~

She trailed off uncertainly, and he debated calling for the others, for backup - but first he wanted to know why she was here, whether she had come back or was just...

~Can I come home for Christmas?~ The question rushed out of her like she couldn't stop it, ringing with truth and lost-alone-frightened and utter _longing_ for the only family she'd ever had. There was no question about her intent, nor her resolve.

In the face of family, even if she wasn't coming home for good, there was only one answer he could give.

~Of course~ he told her, warm and soothing and full of so much joy that she was here at all - and how much he had missed her. ~You can always come home, Raven. We're family.~


	2. 1982

Raven let herself relax back into her normal blue form and smiled across the room at Charles, already waiting in his usual place by the fire.

"Still more comfortable without clothes?" Charles teased, holding out a mug of hot chocolate, perfectly prepared according to her tastes. "I had a devil of a time getting you into them in the first place."

"Why bother when I can make my own?" she teased back, 'changing' into a mirror of his outfit. "Your taste hasn't improved, either."

"Alas, I shall always be an old fart," he chuckled, drinking his own hot toddy as she sipped the chocolate with an expression of absolute bliss. "Besides, it was more for when you _forgot_ to hold the clothes to the same outfit!"

She followed his gaze down at the cardigan which had already changed into a smart blazer and sighed dramatically. "It was the chocolate! You always have the best chocolate..."

~For you? Always~ came the thought into her head and she looked up again, startled, to find his eyes fastened on her face.

~I'll always come home for Christmas, brotherCharles~ she pushed at his mental presence before nudging him with her knee warningly. "Charles..."

"Sorry," Charles grinned, ducking his head like a naughty schoolboy being caught not following the rules. He could only hold it for a second before he burst out laughing, and it wasn't long before she joined him.

They couldn't help but be happy at Christmas. It was the only day of the year they put aside the personas of Professor X and Mystique and went back to being Charles and Raven - family.


	3. 2002

Things had been tense between Charles and Raven for the last couple of years as Erik - Magneto - whiled away the time in his plastic prison. Charles visited regularly to play chess or sometimes just to talk, but access had been more restricted since summer and Magneto had refused to see him this month at all.

For the sake of the unspoken rule to leave everything else behind, he tried to forget...everything. The hawk-like eyes of his adversary and friend that seemed to see through everything, the brief months of perfection when they had walked and worked together - he could pretend they'd never met, that he was still the boy from Oxford. But he couldn't forget that when Erik left he'd taken Raven with him.

He didn't know if he could forgive either of them for that.

For the first time, Raven left before dawn, unwilling to stay in the hostile environment; and for the first time in a long time, Charles drank to drown in oblivion.


	4. 2022

Raven dropped the appearance of the student she'd used to get past the school's security and tried to smile at Charles. It fell flat as she looked at him and saw lines and wrinkles, skin stretched too far and hands shaking with the effort of holding out her mug of hot chocolate. She had always been his younger sister, but while she stayed young - a vague memory of a furless Hank McCoy whispered 'leukocytes of a teenager' - Charles was growing increasingly older.

"I can practically hear you worrying," Charles teased, but his cultured Oxford accent was getting thin.

"You _can_ hear me worrying," she replied dryly, hugging him carefully and fixing his lap rug almost obsessively.

"Raven," Charles said quietly, in the leader-voice she hadn't heard since they were children trying to stop a world war, as he laid his hand over hers. "Raven, stop. I'm fine."

She frowned at the paper-like skin but nodded and withdrew with her mug. Was Magneto also getting frail? She hadn't noticed, but then why would she? She was with him all the time, she might have missed a gradual decline; seeing Charles only once a year she could spot the change immediately. Picturing Magneto, comparing it to her memory of him from twenty years ago...there was a difference. He wasn't as frail as Charles - he was more physically active, always had been, as Charles couldn't be since The Beach - but he had recently begun delegating tasks that would have been routine even a year ago.

Charles and Magneto were getting old.

The thought gave her a chill not even the perfectly made hot chocolate could warm, and she shivered as she sank further into her seat.

~How is he?~ Charles' voice whispered in her mind, as strong and stronger than he ever had been. Mentioning Magneto was against their unspoken rules for Christmas, but she'd already broken the rule by thinking about him. The very fact that Charles was asking meant that he _wasn't_ reading her mind, very much on purpose.

"He's...slowed down," she said eventually. "He's not on the front lines any more. It's mostly his son and daughter who run the Brotherhood, now."

"It must be difficult for him to see them..." Charles trailed off, seeing things only he and Magneto knew. Despite the years they'd been in the Brotherhood, despite their leadership, she still didn't know much about Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, much less why Magneto winced sometimes when Wanda smiled or Pietro frowned. Sometimes she thought that might be why he was withdrawing from the rest of them.

The fire's crackling filled the silence for a few long minutes before Charles changed the subject and they continued talking, but the memory of the longing in his mental voice stayed with her long after she left the mansion.

**Author's Note:**

> If you have any ideas you'd like me to write for other Christmases between Raven and Charles - or times when for some reason or another they didn't happen - please let me know in a comment.


End file.
